Tactics meeting
After a well-earned rest day, the riders embark on a transition stage before the Gavia Pass beckons on stage 18. Today is perfect for a breakaway, so a repeat of Rovny's breakaway win on stage 15 would be nice.
Millar was the Discovery man in a strong break of the day. The Scot was accompanied by riders including Ivanov, Kirchen, Kroon (winner of stage 12) and prologue winner Joost Posthuma.
It looked like the break would stay away. With 15km left, Posthuma launched an attack.
When Posthuma was reeled in, it was John Gadret's turn to try his luck.
But he was also caught. It was all coming together for a sprint between the breakaway riders. Millar was tired at this point.
Under the flamme rouge, Kirchen was very well positioned on Sutherland's wheel. Unfortunately, Millar had nothing left to give in the sprint.
Kirchen just edged Rory Sutherland, and claimed the stage win! But there was some drama going on further behind...
Roman Kreuziger was caught out by a split in the peloton, and lost 36 seconds to Vincenzo Nibali! This was pretty disastrous for our hopes of taking the pink jersey in the final time trial. Roman is now 48 seconds behind his former teammate Nibali.
Today's winner
Results
1 Kim Kirchen Team Columbia - High Road 4h08'52
2 Rory Sutherland Garmin - Slipstream + 0
3 Tiziano Dall'Antonia CSF Group - Navigare + 0
4 Karsten Kroon Team Saxo Bank + 0
5 Sergei Ivanov Team Katusha + 0
6 Luca Solari Serramenti PVC Diguigiovanni - Androni Giocattoli + 0
7 Marco Cattaneo LPR Brakes Farnese Vini + 0
8 Alessandro Spezialetti LPR Brakes Farnese Vini + 0
9 John Gadret AG2R La Mondiale + 0 10 David Millar Discovery Channel + 0
Wow, your Kirchen is a LOT better than the one I have...With pcm 2008 and the 2008 pcm.daily db, I don't think he has more than one 70+ stat left in 2010.
Tactics meeting
Kreuziger has to take back some time on Nibali after yesterday's split in the peloton. Today is probably the last chance to do so. The stage has one major bump in the road: the Gavia Pass, which is this year's Cima Coppi. Kreuziger needs a significant gap at the top, as he can't escape Nibali on the downhill.
We kept a steady pace for the whole day, and no breakaway was in front when we hit the lower slopes of the Gavia.
8km before the summit, Larsson accelrated to set up Kreuziger's attack.
Pellizotti, Valjavec and Soler also made good use of Larsson's lead-out. Together with Kreuziger, they formed a four-man leading group.
Nibali was totally caught out. Before he really knew what happened, Kreuziger had made a gap of two minutes!
But Kreuziger was not the strongest today. Pellizotti took off from the leading group 2km before the Gavia summit.
Soler joined Pellizotti, while Kreuziger was looking quite cooked. Had he gone too early? Would Nibali catch up?
Luckily, Nibali didn't have super legs today. He and Barredo (3rd in GC) were trailing Kreuziger by 1'30 and the leaders, Pellizotti and Soler, by 2'20.
At the start of the decent, Kreuziger was 1 minute behind the leading duo.
Just behind Kreuziger, the trio of Scarponi, Gaia and Valjavec were closing in.
Nibali's group was still 1'30 behind Kreuziger. It was a race to get down from the mountain as fast as possible!
5km from the finish, the three chasers behind Kreuziger had almost caught him. Nothing could be done about Pellizotti and Soler in front. They were definitely the two strongest today.
Soler won the sprint against Pellizotti, and claimed his first Giro stage win this year. It's a good addition to the two wins he has from last year.
Kreuziger was caught by the trio closest to him on the descent, but he managed to hang on to their tail to finish 6th, 1'34 behind Soler.
Nibali's group made up some time during the last kms, but the Maglia Rosa still finished 34 seconds behind Kreuziger! We are now back to the standings before the unfortunate split in the peloton yesterday. Perfect tactics!
Today's winner
Results
1 Mauricio Soler Barloworld 4h10'43
2 Franco Pellizotti Liquigas + 0
3 Michele Gaia CSF Group - Navigare + 1'34
4 Michele Scarponi Serramenti PVC Diguigiovanni - Androni Giocattoli + 1'34
5 Tadej Valjavec AG2R La Mondiale + 1'34 6 Roman Kreuziger Discovery Channel + 1'34
7 Damiano Cunego Team Katusha + 2'08
8 Domenico Pozzovivo CSF Group - Navigare + 2'08
9 David López Euskaltel - Euskadi + 2'08
10 Carlos Barredo Quick-Step + 2'08
Tactics meeting
We've reached the last mountain stage in this Giro. It's really only the first half of the stage which is difficult, but the length could perhaps cause some trouble. We're pleased with Kreuziger's distance to Nibali at the moment, so we'll only watch the Italian closely and make sure Roman doesn't lose time to him.
Domenico Pozzovivo (12th in GC) went on the move on the third mountain, and quickly opened up a gap of 2'30 minutes. 150 lonely kilometers beckoned in front of him. CSF are really putting up a show in this Giro with some lovely aggressive riding!
When the pack hit the last climb, KoM leader Soler stretched his legs, but it was too late to do something about the KoM jersey which Pozzovivo had taken over. Nevertheless, Pozzovivo's teammate Michele Gaia followed Soler.
Over the last summit, Gaia had dropped Soler. There were now two CSF riders out in front. The leader, Pozzovivo, was beginning to feel the long stage in his legs though.
Not far behind Gaia, who never really got a big distance to the pack, Nibali attacked! He obviously doesn't fancy his chances in the TT, and here he had lots of downhill-kms to utilize.
What was left of our Discovery team were sent to the front of the remaining peloton. Nibali was not going to increase his GC lead!
The three Italians out front had come together, with Nibali leading the surge downhill. Our Discovery guys were chasing 40 sec behind.
Soon Pozzovivo was dropped. Only Nibali and young Gaia were left in the lead. The duo kept their gap fairly stable. Was Kreuziger going to lose the Giro on the last mountain?
Luckily the two aggressors were caught as soon as they hit the flat part after the downhill. Kreuziger's 14 seconds up to Nibali were kept as they were thanks to a great job by Brajkovic, Pereiro and Larsson. Phew!
Pellizotti jumped out of the main group as soon as Gaia and Nibali were caught.
Nobody had anything left to chase the 3rd placed GC man, who won the stage. Pellizotti is really coming into form in the Giro's closing stages, but it's a little bit too late to mount a challenge for the overall win. Tony Martin was the only top 10 rider not present in the favourite group, so the German drops down one place to 9th. Tomorrow will see the Giro decided: the final time trial!
Tactics meeting
14 seconds is all that's between Kreuziger and Nibali. The two former teammates are fairly even in their time trialing abilities. Who will wear pink in Milano tomorrow? This is the decisive stage!
Among the early starters, Millar was the best one for a while. The Scotsman has done an OK Giro, helping out on the flat and also showing off our colours in a few breakaways.
Russian Mikhail Ignatiev, who's never really showed anything this Giro, bested Millar by 19 seconds.
Lars Bak overtook Ignatiev's lead by a large margin: 1'02! This time could see the Dane repeating his top ten placing from the first long time trial of this race.
Bak saw 59 riders cross the line without beating his time. His lead lasted until L.L. Sanchez came through 24 seconds faster.
Despite having plummeted down the lists during the mountain stages, Ivan Basso put up a decent performance today, equalling Sanchez' time. This effort would eventually see him finishing 13th overall.
Winner of the previous time trial, Gustav Larsson, was on course for a win today as well. Taking the provisional lead by 43 seconds on Sanchez and Basso, Larsson would be difficult to beat.
The big revelation of this Giro, Michele Gaia, rode a decent time trial, miles ahead of the original team leader Pozzovivo. Gaia came home to a provisional 21st place, and looked like he would keep his 7th spot in the GC.
And then it was down the real business. Kreuziger tapped out a steady rhythm, and what a time he got! He beat his teammate Larsson by 44 seconds! Nibali couldn't possibly counter this?
At the intermediate time check, Nibali showed that he had not given up at all. He was 9 seconds behind Kreuziger, and still in pink! But Kreuziger's last kms had been outstanding. A tired Nibali crossed the line 1'12 behind the Czech. The home favourite had to let go of the pink jersey. Kreuziger has performed like a true champion by winning the final time trial!
Tactics meeting
Kreuziger is riding into the fashion capital that is Milano wearing the most fashionable jersey these days: the pink one! For the stage win, it's an open question. Many sprinters were eliminated in the mountains. Bazayev, who got two stage wins earlier in the race, is still in the peloton. Other candidates could be Marinangeli (who already has a stage) or Hushovd if he's improved since the earlier sprint stages. His team Lampre hasn't even won a stage yet.
Heading towards the sprint finish, Ginanni was looking good on the left side of the camera. Hushovd was once again missing and Bazayev was boxed in.
And it was easy for Ginanni, who claimed Androni's first Giro win this year. De Bonis did a great lead-out for him. Poor Lampre had no success whatsoever in what is probably their biggest race of the season. Roman Kreuziger evaded accidents and has won the Giro d'Italia 2010!
And here's the proof! His first Grand Tour win of many, hopefully. Despite Milano being the centre of fashion, the organizers should be ashamed of the way they've dressed up their podium girls. Yellow doesn't go well with pink.
A great Giro d'Italia is concluded! We had excitement and nerve all the way to the final time trial, and some fantastic stages along the way. The Giro 2010 has to go down as one of the best GTs in a long time.
Both us and Columbia won four stages in this Giro. Kreuziger claimed two of them for us, while Cavendish sprinted home two for Columbia. Franco Pellizotti should be really pleased with his Giro: 3rd overall and three stage wins. Gustav Larsson repeated his top ten from last year with a great ride in support for Kreuziger. The biggest surprise was undoubtedly Michele Gaia of the CSF team. The young Italian stunned everybody with some stellar climbing, finishing 7th in the end. His teammate Pozzovivo claimed the KoM jersey, making this a great Giro for CSF.
The riders will face a prologue and a longer time trial, as well as three mountain stages, of which one is a summit finish. To help Lance in this preparation race, we have brought Levi, Brajkovic and Pereiro, among others. We don't have any particular ambitions apart from doing as well as we can. The overall victory should be within Lance's or Levi's grasp, depending on how Contador's form is.
Gonzalo was actually eliminated.
